


Un ciel aussi rose

by Stultiloquentia



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Canada, Canoes, M/M, background bob and alicia being fluffy, gunnel-bobbing, oh dear so much fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-28
Updated: 2016-08-28
Packaged: 2018-08-11 15:57:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7898821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stultiloquentia/pseuds/Stultiloquentia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack falls just a little more in love when Bitty walks straight past twelve thousand dollars worth of kayaks and stops in front of the cedar strip canoe. "Want the stern again?" Jack asks, recollecting their first time out together on the Samwell pond, his initial consternation when Bitty had claimed the stern seat, and the startled, grudging euphoria that had followed the moment they'd slipped into sync.</p><p>"Nah, it's your turn," Bitty says. "Let's see what you've got." Bitty winks as he sets the picnic hamper in the middle, then steps into the bow, paddle in hand.</p><p>Jack clambers in after him. The boat wobbles. Bitty cuts the water neatly, stabilizing them. A sudden surge of gratitude fills Jack, for so much more than his readiness with a paddle, and he blurts, "I love you."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prelude, Spring 2015

**Author's Note:**

  * For [staranise](https://archiveofourown.org/users/staranise/gifts).



> The line about Alicia's dekes belongs to Commodorified. Likeadeuce and Pene are nice betas who let me get away with as much fluff as I want.

"Oh, you, um. That's the stern," Jack says, and immediately feels like an idiot, because clearly Bitty knows; he's sitting facing the right direction, isn't he?

Everybody else is already paired up and on the water, paddling their rental canoes with varying degrees of success. Jack hears a yell and a splash behind him, and for God's sake, it hasn't even been two minutes? Shitty starts caterwauling about a man overboard, and the chirping from the rest of the team is probably audible in Founders. Meanwhile, Bitty is giving him the side-eye. A mostly amused side-eye, but still.

"C'mon, Jack, are you gonna jump in, or what? We should go see if Holster needs a hand." And then, as Jack pivots awkwardly and makes for the bow seat, "Or, ah, maybenotjump—!"

Jack just snorts at him as Bitty flings a hand out to brace against the dock. He steps lightly into the boat, weight centred over the keel, and sits. The bow seat makes him self-conscious. He likes being in control, able to see his partner and match and complement their strokes. And he knows he should know better than to mistrust Bitty, but how much experience do Georgians have with canoes, anyway?

While Jack's grumbling and fussing with his life vest—mandatory on university boats—Bitty dips his paddle and sends them gliding away from the shore. Jack glances back, just in time to catch the flawless twist of Bitty's j-stroke. "Oh," says Jack.

Bitty raises an eyebrow. "Could I get some help, here?" Jack picks up his paddle and plunges it into the lake, portside to Bitty's starboard. Bitty laughs in delight. "Well, look at you, Mr. Zimmermann. Very nice."

"I'm Canadian, what did you take me for?"

"And I'm a state-licensed camp counselor. What did you take _me_ for?" Well, that explains much.

Jack, starting to grin, sets a swift pace, and feels Bitty fall effortlessly in sync. Their friends holler in surprise as they shoot past them, heading for the middle of the lake. A couple hundred feet out, they lift their paddles from the water and glide, and Bitty turns them around to watch the rest of the hockey team splash and grunt their way closer.

Shitty and Lardo look wobbly, and Shitty's suspiciously wet, but they're both still in the boat. Nursey seems to have claimed the bow under the mistaken impression that it's the seat of power, and is squawking loudly as Dex, competent and serene, steers them in circles. Holtzy and Rans appear to be cataloguing the ways they can enter and exit the boat from the water without losing both paddles or giving themselves concussions. Chowder and Farmer are nowhere to be seen.

"Should we teach them about gunnel-bobbing?" Bitty wonders.

"Haha! Maybe not unless you want to buy Samwell a new fleet."

They leave them to it and continue on toward the far end of the lake, pushing their speed just for pleasure. Bitty whoops as Jack slides down onto one knee—proper racing form. Bitty's been using it all along.

They meet Chris and Caitlin on the way back, and decide to race them the rest of the way to the docks. It's tight enough to be fun, but they still lose. It turns out those kidlets are both dragonboaters.


	2. Chapter 2

They fly into Ottawa, collect the keys to a rental SUV, and shoot straight north without stopping for lunch. Jack is apologetic. "We should take a day, sometime," he says. "Ottawa's a great city."

"That sounds nice," Bitty says agreeably, even though he's never thought about vacationing in Ottawa in his life. He leans back in the passenger's seat, watches the scenery trundle by, and listens to Jack describe his favourite exhibits in the war museum, and the Voice of Fire, and the rug shop Alicia wants them to visit so they can pick out something for the apartment. The car climbs up into the Gatineaus, and the deep spruce and maple woods nuzzle up against the highway. "Want some music?" Bitty asks, when Jack's been silent for a while. "Driver's pick." Jack selects a playlist Bitty made for him—an old one, from their first summer together. It's got some Neko Case and Shania Twain, and a song called "Mieux qu'ici bas" that Bitty stumbled upon while hunting for French Canadian artists. He's not sure how poetic the lyrics are when not mangled by Google Translate, and the instrumentals are a little overwrought, but he found the melody haunting, and Jack's reaction to the first lines of Isabelle Boulay's husky French was so startled and sweet, Bitty flushes at the memory even now.

It's been a wretched few months. Jack was at the top of his game, soaring, making headlines for all the right reasons and _only_ the right reasons at long last, and then his linemate's injury spoiled their playoff run. Worse, the play went down with eerie similarity to the one that gave Bitty his first concussion, and despite Jack's stoic, rallying words in public, Bitty knows how much he struggles with self-blame. Bitty, frantically learning the ropes at his new job, coming home laden with his own exhaustion and worry, hasn't been much help. They're out of sorts and out of sync.

Now Jack takes his right hand off the wheel and wraps it around Bitty's, and together, in unspoken resolution, they let the stresses of the past spring unspool and float away like silk banners in their tailwind.

Landmarks grow scarce. The roads shrink, until the dividing line and then finally even the asphalt vanish all together and they're crunching down a narrow gravel lane, past a wooden sign saying, "Bienvenue à Lac Latour," and parking in a mostly-empty grass lot across from a small white innhouse, a canteen, and a barn. Jack cuts the engine next to a dark gray BMW SUV Bitty's pretty sure he recognizes. The marina is another few hundred feet down the hill on foot. Half a dozen motorboats bob on the breeze, and a cluster of canoes bump and strain against their towlines. Jack scans the boats, then smiles and strides toward a sleek little bowrider with red trim. He throws his duffel in the well and Bitty copies him. The dock is otherwise deserted, so they walk back up the way they came. 

Only halfway there, they hear a shout. It's Bob, banging open the screen door of the scruffy little canteen and jogging to meet them. He's wearing a polo shirt, perfectly broken-in jeans, and a happy grin. He ruffles Jack's hair and sweeps them both into tight, one-armed hugs, mindful of the ice cream sandwich he's clutching in his other hand. Explains he saw them from the canteen window, where he got caught up gossiping with Jerry. They trot back down to the boat.

"So glad to finally get you out here, Eric," Bob says as he climbs in and turns the ignition. "There's a lifejacket in that compartment if you want one." The boat burbles to life. Coming up behind Bitty, Jack slips the ropes, tosses in the fenders, and hops aboard.

It's a glittering day, the afternoon sun high and the breeze just brisk enough to set the waves alight. Bob reverses demurely out of the marina's sheltered little bay, then zooms into the channel, winning all the Sexy Dad awards at once, standing at the wheel with his sunglasses and forearms and the wind in his hair. Bitty scrunches his nose and grins at Jack, who has flopped down and manspread himself across the passenger bench at the stern. Jack laughs back at him, darned sexy himself, and looking more relaxed by the minute.

"How're Jerry and Vik?"

"Still teaching swimming. Vikki added a rock-climbing course last year, too. She's on Lac Sam today, setting routes. She'd love to see you." Father and son gossip about the locals while Bitty looks out at the sparsely scattered cottages off the starboard side and a string of pine-studded islands to port. They're all completely wild, too small for human habitation.

"There's the loon," says Bob, pointing.

Bitty follows the line of his arm and says, "Oh, it's like a duck in formal wear," to make Jack laugh. 

"We installed a nesting platform on the other side of our island a few years ago," Jack says. "They're fussy about where they'll nest, and many of their old habitats get too much human traffic, and they get anxious. So Mom and Papa were ecstatic when they finally got a mated pair last year."

"They migrate to Georgia, I think?" says Bitty. "I've just never seen one."

Three minutes later they swerve around a buoy and pull into the mouth of the Zimmermanns' boathouse. Bitty takes in an impression of a cool, dark space with wave shadows bouncing across the walls and enough room for a deck boat as well as the bowrider, a whole wall of kayaks, and a very small, aluminum motorboat that looks not unlike a Campbell's soup can sawn in half with a dinky outboard motor alligator-clipped to the back. Jack catches him looking and says, fondly, "That one's mine," before they hoist their duffels and make their way outside and up the path to the house.

Cottage. It is a summer cottage. And all right, it is not, in fact, all that enormous for a hockey castle, though Bitty does spy a guest house peeking through the trees out back. Granite and cedar, with graceful lines and big, lake-facing windows. Most of the property value still lies in the woods that cover most of the island, and all that untouched shoreline. 

Alicia bounds out to meet them with even less decorum than Bob, and she's not just a hugger, but a kisser. In no time flat she's got them installed on the porch with enormous glasses of tea and plates of sesame breaded chicken. 

"I'm afraid cell coverage out here is pretty spotty, Eric," Alicia says, sitting down to join them.

"Oh that's okay, I'm sure I'll live," Bitty replies. "Contrary to certain people's opinions. I just wanted my camera." He aims his phone at Jack, who's sitting cross-legged in his chair like an overgrown teenager, singlemindedly stuffing his face with his mother's cooking, and clicks.

*

That night they sleep with the windows open. The ghostly wailing of the loons wakes Bitty at two a.m. He slips out of bed and over to the window to get closer to the sound. The sky is.... 

"Jack," Bitty whispers. He barely draws breath, doesn't even mean it as a decision to wake him, but Jack hums and stirs, nudging a hand out in search of Bitty's warmth. 

"Bits?"

"Look at the sky." 

Jack wedges an elbow under himself and squints toward the window. "Oh," he says. He hauls himself all the way up to sitting and rubs sleep from his eyes. "Let's go to the dock."

"Okay." 

Bitty finds his sweatshirt on the dresser while Jack swings his legs over the edge of the bed and grabs a flannel from the closet. They tiptoe downstairs, out through the French doors and across the big, quarried patio stones. 

The dock is already occupied. Bob and Alicia form a single lumpy silhouette at the end, wrapped in a crocheted throw. They turn at the sound of footsteps. 

"We were just wondering if we should disturb you," Alicia calls quietly. "Have you ever seen the northern lights before, Eric?"

"No," Bitty admits.

Jack sits on the dock beside his parents and tugs Bitty down between his knees.

"I guess it must be old hat to y'all."

"It's never old hat," says Bob.

 _These people_ , Bitty thinks, and settles against Jack's chest, mirroring Alicia snugged up in the circle of Bob's arms.

"Better than Adirondacks, aren't they?" Alicia says, patting her husband's still-shapely thigh, and Bob's teeth flash in the dark.

Bitty tips his head back against Jack's shoulder. Above them, the Milky Way blazes across the sky, brighter than Bitty has ever seen outside of pictures, and to the north, right above the horizon, the lights drape like a vast green curtain.

Bitty thinks of July with Jack in Georgia, and some pretty nice stars, and the township of Madison's earnest twenty-minute firework show. _All right, Canada, you win this round._

The next morning they rise late. When Bitty wakes Jack is amorous, and by the time they make it into the kitchen, pink and shower-damp, Bob and Alicia have abandoned them, taking two kayaks and leaving a plate of ham and French toast waiting in the toaster oven.

***

Jack falls a little more in love when Bitty walks straight past twelve thousand dollars worth of kayaks and stops in front of the cedar strip canoe. "Want the stern again?" Jack asks, recollecting their first time out together on the Samwell pond, his initial consternation when Bitty claimed the stern seat, and the startled, grudging euphoria that followed the moment they slipped into sync. 

"Nah, it's your turn," Bitty says. "Let's see what you've got." Bitty winks as he sets the picnic hamper in the middle, then steps into the bow, paddle in hand.

Jack clambers in after him. The boat wobbles. Bitty cuts the water neatly, stabilizing them. A sudden surge of gratitude fills Jack, for so much more than his readiness with a paddle, and he blurts, "I love you." Jack watches Bitty's shoulders go soft and relaxed, as if the declaration is actually melting him a little.

"I love you too, baby."

Jack pushes them away from the dock. It's like before. Bitty's strokes are deep and fluid, entering the water with barely a splash. Matching him is effortless, and the canoe glides forward as smoothly as if the two of them have raced together for years. It feels unbelievably good to do this simple thing together. 

Jack takes them around the island, past the stretch of bare granite outcrop covered with lichen and last year's pine needles, the swampy shallows full of hyacinths and water lilies, and the little bay with the loon's nest, out across the second channel, on the opposite side from Jerry's marina. A couple kilometers down, a sleepy little creek called Ruisseau Jacques feeds into the lake. "The name predates me!" Jack insists, when Bitty turns all the way around to stare at him with his eyebrows raised. "I'll show you the surveyor's map when we get back. It's from 1934." Bitty does not have to say a word for Jack to feel the chirp.

They paddle the canoe up to the first beaver dam, then beach it and hike up another kilometer to a low waterfall with wide, smooth banks perfect for picnicking. They are perfectly alone. No other boats, no hikers or rock climbers, no cell service. Jack lies back on the sun-warmed stone and sucks a blackberry seed from between his teeth. Bitty takes off his socks and cools his feet in the pothole below the falls, such as it is, then comes back up the bank and peers down at Jack. Jack smiles and opens his arms. 

And then Bitty's weight is pressing him into the creek bank, and Bitty's lips are finding the last trace of blackberry juice staining Jack's lips, and their hips are moving gently, lazily, in a rhythm more familiar and perfect than their paddles through the water. Bitty reaches for the drawstring of Jack's shorts, and sits back, leaving Jack exposed to the sky, and it's a liberation and a free-falling act of trust, in Bitty, in the universe, and in himself. Jack stretches his arms out to either side, tilts his head back, and lets himself be loud.

They talk afterward, old habit; sex loosens Jack's tongue, and makes Bitty soft and silly and fond. They talk about spring, and the playoffs, and Jack's jitters about getting an A next year in spite of everything. "Because of everything," Bitty says, soft but firm, and Jack sighs and kisses his biceps, which is what's in reach. There's lots left to talk about: Bitty's new life and schedule, and his efforts to make friends. But Jack's been learning to balance between clamming up and trying to shove everything on his mind into a single conversation, so he sets his mental bookmark and lets them them drift into contemplative silence.

They head home with the sun behind them, and the view of Bitty's bare shoulders fills Jack with a diffuse and mellow pleasure.

When they're back in sight of the house, Bitty drops his paddle and pitches his Falcs cap into the middle of the boat. "What are you—" Jack asks, and then he just stares with his mouth open as Bitty clambers swiftly and nimbly up onto the gunnels. His bare toes flex, and Jack instinctively angles his paddle to steady the boat, not that Bitty needs it. One, two quick steps to the prow, arms outstretched, and he throws a shit-eating grin over his shoulder and himself clean overboard. 

Bitty surfaces from his neat dive, swims up next to Jack and folds his hands over the sides of the canoe. Jack looks down into his huge, dark eyes and thinks of sirens and selkies. He says so, and Bitty bats his eyelashes and claps a wet hand around Jack's wrist. "Come into the water, my pretty," he croons. 

Jack's parents find them close to an hour later, _both_ balanced on opposite ends of the poor canoe's gunnels. 

"Gunnel-bobbing, really?" says Alicia from her kayak. She's wearing a bathing suit and her own Falcs cap, despite the cooling weather. "I thought you were proud of keeping all your teeth!" 

"Who's winning?" Bob wants to know.

"I dare you," says Jack to his dad. "I dare you to go up against him." 

They have to tug the canoe over to the dock to get Bob situated, and then Jack has to push them back out of reach of it, but Bob's rubbing his hands together and talking smack the whole time. Bitty takes him down in less than ten seconds. Jack tries one more time and lasts five seconds longer. 

"Don't hurt my canoe, you great oafs," Alicia threatens. 

"Mo-ommm," and it's Bab Bob Zimmermann who says it, but it's Jack with the baby blues. So Alicia rolls her eyes and challenges Bitty, for the honour of her family. It's a draw. Bitty's got the balance, but Alicia's got them dekes.

*

Finally, on the day they're scheduled to leave, they rise before dawn. The canoe slips out onto the glassy lake with barely a sound. Mist rises around them in thick columns. Bitty steers so Jack can keep his camera close.

Deer raise their heads to watch them pass. An osprey pays them no mind as she eats her breakfast from the top of a dying oak tree.

Bitty's favourite is the mink Jack spots zig-zagging along the rocks right at the shoreline. "Take us closer," Jack murmurs. "Mink aren't shy." Sure enough, they drift within three meters of the busy creature, paddles held motionless above the water, dripping delicate twin chains of concentric ripples. The mink sits up and stretches her nose toward them, curious to know who is taking such interest in her morning hunt.

"Morning, ma'am," Bitty salutes. "Just passing through." 

They cross a patch of lily pads as they leave her be, and the broad leaves hiss against their keel and bob back into place in their wake. "Stop," Jack requests, and Bitty backstrokes and plants his paddle in the swamp muck, sending up a bubble of methane, while Jack leans over and points his camera at a flower.

The sky is slowly changing from deep, velvety gray-indigo to sunrise hues. They cut between the islands again, and there's the first glimpse of the sun above the trees, throwing the lure of its gold trail across the water.

Bitty gasps as he takes it in: "Oh, Jack."

Jack thinks, _This is the perfect place to propose._

And then, in quick succession, _Why are we not in the skiff? I can't even turn around to face him properly_ , and, _I don't have a ring_ , and, _Does Bitty even want an engagement ring? Is that heteronormative?_ and, _But what about proposing at Faber, that was the plan, right?_ and, _Crisse de tabarnak, it's just a sunrise_. His knuckles stiffen around the canoe paddle, with which he has forgotten to actually _paddle_ , just as Bitty repeats, "Jack?"

He says, "How do you feel about engagement rings?"

Bitty is silent for several seconds, in which Jack does not dare turn around, before he says, in a steady but higher-than-normal tone of voice, "Well. I, I think if one of us gets one, then we both should, don't you? Or at least something like that, that will fit beneath hockey gear.... It might be, um. Maybe it would be fun to pick them out together?"

"Okay. Yeah, I like that."

"Jack?" Bitty's voice climbs another notch. "Was that—"

Jack twists around in his seat as best he can, and his long-suffering boyfriend probably deserves an apology, but Jack can't help his goofy smile. He wants to stand up and shimmy. Do a celly. He holds Bitty's eyes. "Just making plans."

The look Bitty gives him is one part exasperation and three parts helpless affection. "Whatever helps you work your mojo, sweetheart."

"I'm sorry. I didn't even mean to _say_ that, I just—"

Bitty's peal of laughter carries far enough that Bob and Alicia can probably hear it from the patio, where they'll be shuffling out with cups of coffee. "Sweetheart, you think I don't know that?"

Jack's smile turns rueful. He stretches his hand back, and Bitty leans forward and clasps his fingertips for a brief moment. Then Bitty rises on his feet, one in front of the other over the keel, and braces his hands on the gunnels, keeping his centre of gravity low, and leans even more, and Jack can just stretch far enough to meet his kiss. He braces his hands on Bitty's shoulders, and his lunatic waterbaby gives him all his weight so he can cup both hands around Jack's face.

Pulling out of the most awkward and also the best kiss of his life, Jack says, "Want to go home now?"

"I really need to get to dry land and keep kissing you silly, so yes."

Bitty lowers himself backward, and Jack faces front and resumes their course, feeling Bitty's strong strokes pull them forward. It's a wonder neither of them dropped their paddles overboard in all the commotion.

The sun clears the trees, gilding the edges of a pair of broad-sailed cumulus and turning their middles rosy, promising fair weather.


End file.
